A harried sitcom star refuses to become fair game for today's camcorder-totting stargazers

       Just days after he was accused of smashing a card window and grabbing the camera from a man who had videotaped him and his two young daughters, a shaken Tony Danza told TV Guide that his reaction was the culmination of months of stress, harassment, and fear for his children's safety.
       "Fear-- that's exactly what we're talking about," says Danza. The star, already harried by the demands of producing and starring in the new ABC sitcome Hudson Street, would not comment on the spcifics of the August 20 incident, which took place near his Malibu home. But the videotaping episode had clearly compounded the irritation created by several similar occurrences in recent months involving fans who violated his privacy. "Why don't I just invite them into the house if they're going to be that close? They are stalking me," he says.
Danza is no newcomer to the demands of fame, but its latest wrinkle-- the videotaped encounter-- strikes a particularly sensitive nerve. "I got a little problem with video cameras," he said on the set of his new series two weeks before the Malibu incident. "I think the Brady bill should cover them. 'You want a video camera, sir? We gotta look at your background.'"
       The popular star of Who's the Boss? and Taxi has been caught on tape in temperamental eruptions before. In the past year alone, tabloid TV shows have aired footage of Danza jostling an 8-mm camera that had intruded into his conversation at a black-tie event; denouncing a photographer who had hidden in the bushes to tape him playing tennis; and angrily confronting a waiting cameraman at Los Angeles International Airport. (During the latter incident, Danza yelled, "When I say put it down, I mean no pictures." As the man hesitated, Danza backed him into a row of lockers.)
       The incident at LAX caused a tabloid show to call Danza "ballistic." The actor describes the encounter this way: "I said, 'No video. Hey, man, no video.' The guys says to me, 'OK,' and he just keeps shotting. And i got mad. That happens."
       It's no secret that Danza has a temper. The ex-boxer served three years' probatoin for assaulting a security guard in 1984. "It was a terrible thing," he said of the fight. "It was terribly embarrassing for me." As for the LAX confrontation, Danza said, "Like a jerk, I lost my temper. It was stupid, and I won't let it happen again."
       Two weeks later: the Malibu melee. This time it wasn't just Danza, it was his two daughters, ages 8 and 2 1/2, whom he felt were being threatened.
       Those beaches are private," says Det. Sgt. Tom Garagliano of Malibu's Lost Hills sheriff's station, who is investigating the case. "Tony Danza was having a personal life while these guys ware filming him. When they leave the scene, Danza goes out front to confront them and take the camera away from them. He says he did not rough them up. They say he did."
       Danza later retunred the camera. The photographers filed a report against Danza. He could be charged with robbery, battery, or vandalism by the Malibu section of the D.A's office.
       The day after the Malibu incident, Danza reported to the Hudson Street set, where he began shooting the fourth episode of his new series. With the media buzzing, he immediately gathered cast and crew. "I told them, 'We can't let this affect us. We have to go on.' I did tell them I would try to not let it distract me, if they wouldn't let it distract them."
       But the likelihood that similar distractions will occur is rising. In the past year, the videotaping marauder has become a Hollywood commonplace, an outgrowth of the lucrative tabloid-TV cottage industry. There is some thought that the two men involvedin the most recent videotaping may represent this new wave of "fan" who use their cameras to provoke reactions such as Danza's, which make for more salable footage. One of the men whom Danza confronted in Malibu had previously been charged with assaulting a security guard on the Baywatch set.
       "When you get someone who is following you and sitting out front with a telephoto lens waiting for you to blow your nose, anybody would feel uncomfortable with that," says Garagliano.
       Although Danza would not comment on the confrontation because of the ongoing investigation, he says, "I'm not sure it's going to be very much longer before the other shoe drops. There are charges pending, and I'm sure I'm going to get charged with something. I can't say anything, because if I do I'm asking for trouble." Although contrite, Danza speaks with a certain self-awareness when he adds, " It would be stupid of me to say the wrong thing now. But I have a tendency to do that."

By: Mary Murphy